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Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
What is Script Frenzy?

You know how NaNoWriMo is about writing a novel in a month? Well Script Frenzy is the equivalent for stage plays, musicals, screen plays (including documentaries), TV scripts, radio plays, graphic novels, cabaret shows, podcast scripts–anything where your final output is a script of some sort that is going to be performed by actor/s!*

*okay so technically operas qualify as well since there is a libretto for it, but come on, opera is mostly music wrapped up with the vaguest semblance of a script.



What's the challenge?

Write a 100 page** script (or multiple scripts that add up to 100 pages**) during the 30 days of April. The rules:
  • Collaboration+ is allowed! If you already have a writing partner, sign up together. If not, post in this thread and maybe you'll find one!
  • Writing commences at midnight on 1 April 2021 and ends at 11:59 PM on 30 April 2021, your local time zone
  • Have loads of fun!

** 100 pages when formatted following standard script formatting conventions (see below). There used to be a dedicated Script Frenzy site that had a page count thing where you would upload your final script to be validated and you would get a nice shiny badge, but it's now defunct...so honor system or feel free to post screenshots if you want!

+ Especially when writing musicals! Writing teams usually work as composer + lyricist/librettist or composer/lyricist + librettist pairs, with the occasional team of composer + lyricist + librettist, or people like Lin Manuel Miranda who show everyone else up by being a quadruple threat of being the composer/lyricist/librettist/lead actor, but let's forget him for a moment because Hamilton took seven years to write and we only have 30 days



Script writing software
All of these will format your script for you, hassle free:


But I don't have any ideas for a script!
If you have:
  • any inklings of a story or stories you want to tell
  • old/abandoned/unpublished drafts of a novel
  • a subject that you find fascinating and that more people should know about
then you have an idea for a script!



But scripts are weird and scary and I have no idea how to write one!

bassguitarhero posted:

You don't need to know anything about screenwriting to write a script, Robert Rodriguez wrote the screenplay for "el mariachi" by hand and it filled up 40 or 60 notebook pages, but the way he bunched it all together it still filled up about 90 minutes of movie time.

Scripts are like recipes but for stories that are told in an audio/visual/live format where the main ingredients are dialogue and action. So :wave: all you prose fiction writers who want to practice writing some dialogue? Why not give script writing a go? It'll make you improve your dialogue pretty fast!



But I could just practice writing dialogue and action by writing/revising the next draft of my novel!

I want you to picture the high you'll experience from landing an agent/getting a book deal/seeing your book go up on Amazon/on the shelves at your local bookstore. Breathe it in. Revel in it.

Now multiply that feeling by a factor of a hundred: that is the intensity of the emotional reward you get when you have a bunch of other people do a reading of YOUR script and you see your story come to life in front of your eyes. And every time it's performed, it takes new life, because no performance is ever the same as the one before it.

And if you write a script for live performance, you will get to live that high over and over and over again, whenever you watch your audience experiencing your story!



Getting started

The Producer's Perspective
Run by Ken Davenport, who is a big name Broadway producer (e.g. Kinky Boots, plus many, many others). There are some useful blog articles (like how to write a one person show in 30 minutes). He also runs a 30 day script challenge where you sign up for a mailing list and it will email you exactly what you're supposed to be doing on each of those 30 days. This is the program I'll be following. Here's a summary:



Freshmen Screenplay
How to write your screenplay in 30 days or less

Script Frenzy forums on NaNoWriMo.org
Script Frenzy used to have a separate site also run by the NaNoWriMo folks but it's since been rolled into the main site and lives in this forum:
https://forums.nanowrimo.org/c/outside-the-box/script-frenzy

NObodyNOWHERE posted:

Here are a couple of good sites I use to find scripts to read and study. I figure it's the first page and this is a common request. Scridx was a favorite that I used to recommend a lot, but they seem to have shut down.

https://scriptslug.com/ - This is a nice site with a growing number of new and old scripts. Good looking too, especially compared to the typical PDF dumps you find.

http://www.script-o-rama.com/table.shtml - This is a list of links to scripts being hosted around the web. More old stuff, but a nice selection.

Also, Rian Johnson's site has the scripts for Brick, Brothers Bloom, and Looper available for free download. These are awesome and great examples for formatting and super-economical writing that is still interesting and vibrant. I think these scripts are some of the best to study, regardless of your level of experience with screenwriting. http://www.rcjohnso.com/

Here are some other promising sites I haven't checked out much.
http://www.simplyscripts.com/movie-scripts.html
https://www.raindance.org/scripts/ - The aforementioned PDF dump. Has some TV material in it as well.
https://www.scriptreaderpro.com/best-screenplays-to-read/ - A list of suggested top scripts to read in various genres.
http://www.imsdb.com/ - A script database. Decent selection, but I don't really care for the format. Scripts are shown inline on the page and don't appear to to be downloadable .

screenwritersblues posted:

You can start by reading other scripts and finding out how each writer has a different style from each other.

The best site right now is https://www.mypdfscripts.com. The guy who runs it has a pretty good connection, considering that he has had legal action threatened against him and also has had his original site shut down. To find what you want, just wander around for a few minutes and you'll find something that you want to read.

Also,for books I suggest Syd Field's Screenplay, it's the best book out there for screenwriting tips and basic formatting.

The script frenzy website has some of the best information formatting a script for word, if you can't find a cracked version of final draft. https://web.archive.org/web/20121124092939/http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/howtoformatascreenplay

Twisted Perspective posted:

There are lots of good articles here: http://www.scriptmag.com/



Count me in!

Post in the thread and tell us what you're writing. If you're looking for a writing partner, go ahead and post a request for that too–who knows, you just might find the collaborator you've been looking for!



Who else is in and what are they writing?

Films

As Nero Danced posted:

It's going to be a supernatural horror movie set in the post-civil war American frontier.

FreudianSlippers posted:

-Video Hell Spawn
London in the 1980s. A university professor, and expert in the occult, is brutally murdered. His assistant, with the aid of a greasy video store employee, investigates and discovers that he was part of a sinister government plan to turn the poor of Britain into hideous murderous mutants via videotapes injected with Satanic subliminal messages.

-Nightcry (very bad working title)
A dysfunctional couple desperately tried to save their crumbling relationship by going on a week-long camping trip through Iceland. After a series of drunken arguments they're ejected from a campsite and forced to rough it in a location where that woman soon discovers is haunted by the útburður, the vengeful ghost of infants left for dead in the wilderness in ancient times. She hears the anguished cries in the night but He either doesn't or pretends not to. But soon the haunting progresses to the point that no one could ignore it.

BisonDollah posted:

a 100 page period piece film based around William Thomas Turner (the captain of the Lusitania which was torpedoed and sank in 1915).

TV

Zypher posted:

It's a space western about a convoy of intergalactic cargo haulers just trying to survive the trek across the Orion Arm. It's FIREFLY meets BATTLESTAR.

Maigius posted:

a made-for-TV movie told in the style of breaking news broadcasts. Aliens have made first contact and are extremely outdated. Think disco maniacs, dressed like ABBA members who want to bring Nixon and Gorbachev together for world peace.

Musicals

Leng posted:

a show about auditors: basically Wolf of Wall Street meets Flash Boys/Enron but in the style of like, Dear Evan Hansen.

Stage plays

fallingdownjoe posted:

a one-room heist farce set in an old people's home

NObodyNOWHERE posted:

I'm going to try to knock out a short script for an anthology show I have in mind, probably around 30 pages. It's about the last man at the heat death of the universe still managing to be problematic. Should be mostly dialogue free, which will be an interesting challenge.

Still happy to read and provide notes.

Maybes / Brains trust

NObodyNOWHERE posted:

I am super pumped for this thread. Work is beastly right now and I write slow, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to submit something. I will definitely be happy to read and provide notes for people who want them though.

ButtWolf posted:

If anyone needs ideas or feedback, PM me. Im not writing cause Im the least prolific writer of all time. But I have some knowledge that may be helpful.



:confused: FAQs :confused:

Can I use something I've started but never finished?

Yes! Abandoned scripts or novels are perfect for Script Frenzy:

Zypher posted:

The spirit of it is to encourage writing through structure and community. If you want to dust off an old idea, I say go for it


Can we start putting together a blueprint or other framework (or other prep work) before the deadline?

Yes, absolutely! Notes, concepts, planning your writing schedule, index cards, Pinterest boards, etc all allowed, just don't start typing your actual screenplay until 1 April!

Is it a hard 100 pages, can it be less or how much more?

Technically it's a minimum of 100 pages. Like the 50,000 word count for NaNoWriMo, it's mainly there to force you to stop procrastinating and actually get into writing a decent amount. If you finish telling the story you want to tell in 80 or 120 pages instead of 100, don't stress about it! Though if you're at the 80 pages end of the spectrum and there's still a week left in the challenge, that's a good opportunity to get cracking on the first 20 pages of the sequel/a short film!

---------------
EDIT: Updated to add in more resources from the screenwriting thread (and the one before it) that's now dead, what everyone's working on and some FAQs.

Leng fucked around with this message at 11:55 on Apr 2, 2021

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sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









This is amazing, great op! Feel free to pimp it round the CC forum, it's very specific so I don't know how many people will be down to make a script, but you could definitely find some interested eyes!

As Nero Danced
Sep 3, 2009

Alright, let's do this
I have a bunch of abandoned script ideas, so this is a good opportunity to get one finished. It's been way too long since I wrote a script. I think this time I'm going to write a different genre from what I usually do. It's going to be a supernatural horror movie set in the post-civil war American frontier.

Zypher
Sep 3, 2009

Rutgers

Your 2006
Mythical National
Champions!
Thanks for this!

I just started working on a pilot; I'll use this frenzy to keep myself accountable and finish by the end of April. Not 100 pages, but if I get it in decent shape by the end of April I'll still be very happy.

It's a space western about a convoy of intergalactic cargo haulers just trying to survive the trek across the Orion Arm. The gig economy, still going strong several hundred years from now, stretches across the entire universe. Many thousands of independently contracted spaceships ferry goods up and down a spider web of colonies and space stations. It’s dangerous work — cargo freighters make easy prey for pirates — which is why megacorporations are more than happy to pass the risk off to those desperate enough to transport. It's FIREFLY meets BATTLESTAR.

This is my first attempt writing science fiction, although I've long been a fan of the genre (the two shows above, in particular). This idea started coming together while I was playing Death Stranding; I'm trying to map the mechanics of delivering goods to scattered, isolated communities on a galactic scale. It's also me working out my frustration of Prop 22 passing in California. I recently rewatched a bunch of Star Trek, Cowboy Bebop, and Outlaw Star to get in the scifi headspace.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

Does it need to be a 100% new script or can I use something I've started but never finished?

I have one script that I only ever got 4 pages into.

FreudianSlippers fucked around with this message at 17:48 on Mar 21, 2021

Zypher
Sep 3, 2009

Rutgers

Your 2006
Mythical National
Champions!
The spirit of it is to encourage writing through structure and community. If you want to dust off an old idea, I say go for it

NObodyNOWHERE
Apr 24, 2007

Now we are all sons of bitches.
Hell Gem
I am super pumped for this thread. Work is beastly right now and I write slow, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to submit something. I will definitely be happy to read and provide notes for people who want them though.

As Nero Danced
Sep 3, 2009

Alright, let's do this
Question: can we start putting together a blueprint or other framework (or other prep work) before the deadline?

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
Woohoo! Yay! :keke::hf::) I'm so psyched we're all in this together! I'll update the OP with a list of everybody and what they're writing.

As for me, I'm gonna write a show about auditors: basically Wolf of Wall Street meets Flash Boys/Enron but in the style of like, Dear Evan Hansen.

FreudianSlippers posted:

Does it need to be a 100% new script or can I use something I've started but never finished?

I have one script that I only ever got 4 pages into.

I'd call that an abandoned script which sounds perfect for Script Frenzy! Chances are once you start writing, you may find it'll go in a different direction so those first four pages will probably end up being rewritten anyway.

As Nero Danced posted:

Question: can we start putting together a blueprint or other framework (or other prep work) before the deadline?

Yes, absolutely! Notes, concepts, planning your writing schedule, index cards, Pinterest boards, etc all allowed, just don't start typing your actual screenplay until 1 April!

ButtWolf
Dec 30, 2004

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
If anyone needs ideas or feedback, PM me. Im not writing cause Im the least prolific writer of all time. But I have some knowledge that may be helpful.

bushisms.txt
May 26, 2004

Scroll, then. There are other posts than these.


Is it a hard 100 pages, can it be less or how much more? I'm really bad at hitting targets.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

bushisms.txt posted:

Is it a hard 100 pages, can it be less or how much more? I'm really bad at hitting targets.

A rules lawyer would say it's a hard minimum 100 pages, but I'd treat it as a benchmark. I suspect the "100 page" target was selected because of the general belief that 1 page of script = 1 min of stage/screen time (which is only an approximation at best anyway). Like the 50,000 word count for NaNoWriMo, it's mainly there to force you to stop procrastinating and actually get into writing a decent amount.

If you finish telling the story you want to tell in 80 or 120 pages instead of 100, I wouldn't stress about it! Though if you're at the 80 pages end of the spectrum and there's still a week left in the challenge, I'd say that's a good opportunity to get cracking on the first 20 pages of the sequel/a short film!

fallingdownjoe
Mar 16, 2007

Please love me
I've got a few things on, but I've been meaning to properly push on with writing something again for a while, so I will probably get in on this. If I do, it'll be an attempt at a stageplay challenge - I've been pootling around with an idea of a one-room heist farce set in an old people's home for a while, and this may be what I need to actually do it!

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

fallingdownjoe posted:

I've got a few things on, but I've been meaning to properly push on with writing something again for a while, so I will probably get in on this. If I do, it'll be an attempt at a stageplay challenge - I've been pootling around with an idea of a one-room heist farce set in an old people's home for a while, and this may be what I need to actually do it!

Yay, a stageplay buddy! I hope there'll be a few more of us.

Live performances might not really be happening right now thanks to COVID-19 but there's no time like the present to do all of the hard work of developing a new show! My friend did a Zoom reading of a new musical during lockdown and it turned out surprisingly well. Definitely wasn't the same level of energy and vibe of a pizza and beer living room reading but it still worked and got me my theatre fix.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
We've less than a week to go before Script Frenzy begins! :woop:

Compared to where I was for NaNoWriMo, I am woefully underprepared for Script Frenzy, so I thought I'd better go and review what's in store in Ken Davenport's 30 Day Script Challenge. Here's a summary:



Now you don't need to sign up for the program, unless you want little daily suggestions/emailed encouragement. If you're new to writing, then I'd recommend it, but if you know how you work best already, then the summary is all you need to know.

I'm stoked to see that the first six days of it is all planning/book work on index cards, which means technically under the rules, I can start now! Which is a really good thing, because since I'm writing a musical, that means I need to write songs, and songs take me considerably longer than the scenes. I can usually smash out a scene in a couple of hours, no problem, but songs can take me anywhere from "inspiration has struck and the song literally just pours out of my fingers" to "I have rewritten this song thirty one times over three years before finally getting to a version that I'm reasonably happen with", so I will most likely need those 6 days as buffer days to work on songs.

One personal caveat for myself: I ran into loads of trouble with index cards while attempting my last musical so I might do a blend between Brandon Sanderson's outlining method (which I used for NaNoWriMo) and index cards this time around.

Also on writing songs in musicals, in case anyone is curious:
  • "What comes first, the music or the lyrics?" People always ask this question, and the answer is: "the book"
  • "The book" is the story, which is written down as a libretto, and is so called because it literally becomes "the book"
  • "The book" comes first, because before you write a song, you need to decide what moments in the story require a song, from which character(s) and what that song needs to accomplish, i.e. song placement
  • You can have well-written songs that don't work because of book problems, and then you need to cut them, even if you love that song–even if everybody who's ever heard the song on its own cries whenever they hear it–because if you leave it in, it will make your show suck because it's the wrong song/sung by the wrong character/in the wrong place/all of the above
  • I would say that there are 5 things you need to get down at minimum in order to say a song is done: tempo, metre, harmony, melody and lyrics. This does not have to be notated, let alone orchestrated (piano vocal is the default arrangement, though I know some people who write on guitar as their default instead), as long as you can play/sing it.
  • That said, it's way easier to review and revise if you have it notated. If you can read/write music, I'd go lead sheets; if you can't, lyrics with chord symbols plus a recording work just fine. Whatever you do, please do not play your music using a MIDI input into Garage Band or Cubase or whatever and then do the thing where you ask it to convert the MIDI input into sheet music: if you're lucky, all of the pitches will be correct, but that's about it. Everything else will be wrong and terrible, and it will just annoy the musicians who will have to play it, and what they play will sound nothing at all like what you had pictured, not because your music sucks or the musician(s) suck but because the software sucks.

Maigius
Jun 29, 2013


I have a possibly stupid idea, a made-for-TV movie told in the style of breaking news broadcasts. Aliens have made first contact and are extremely outdated. Think disco maniacs, dressed like ABBA members who want to bring Nixon and Gorbachev together for world peace.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
Nice :):hf::) that could be extremely hilarious!

Today is the last day of March and contrary to my good intentions, I have done zero prep work (so, par for course really). I need to finish up my last project today so I can start tomorrow with a clear, focused head. Maybe I can just power through those first 6 days in one sitting tomorrow. So long as I don't overthink stuff, it should be ok, right? That's what revisions are for?

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

I have two ideas that have potential:

-Video Hell Spawn
London in the 1980s. A university professor, and expert in the occult, is brutally murdered. His assistant, with the aid of a greasy video store employee, investigates and discovers that he was part of a sinister government plan to turn the poor of Britain into hideous murderous mutants via videotapes injected with Satanic subliminal messages.

-Nightcry (very bad working title)
A dysfunctional couple desperately tried to save their crumbling relationship by going on a week-long camping trip through Iceland. After a series of drunken arguments they're ejected from a campsite and forced to rough it in a location where that woman soon discovers is haunted by the útburður, the vengeful ghost of infants left for dead in the wilderness in ancient times. She hears the anguished cries in the night but He either doesn't or pretends not to. But soon the haunting progresses to the point that no one could ignore it.


As you can tell I'm a genre sort of guy. The second one has more potential from a practical standpoint because 90% of it would be two actors outside so no sets and tiny cast. But maybe I shouldn't be thinking so practically at this stage.


I've also been working on a script that's basically 17th century folk horror Predator but I'm already neck deep in research for that and have at least a couple more months more of digging through court documents and letters and annals before I'm ready to properly start and that project is so aggressively Icelandic that it basically needs to be written in ástkæra ylhýra Icelandic which would make feedback difficult.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

FreudianSlippers posted:

The second one has more potential from a practical standpoint because 90% of it would be two actors outside so no sets and tiny cast. But maybe I shouldn't be thinking so practically at this stage.

I once went to a seminar run by Ken Davenport where I was really concerned about writing a show that demanded a huge cast and sets, etc. I asked him "is it produceable?" and he answered "everything is produceable somewhere, but you need to finish writing it first".

That said, I ran into loads of story problems with that idea so I'm deliberately putting some constraints on myself this time around to tell a more focused story. Namely, max 3 locations and 5 actors.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
:siren: SCRIPT FRENZY HAS BEGUN I REPEAT SCRIPT FRENZY HAS BEGUN!!! :siren:

It has in Australia, at any rate. It's almost 1 AM and I should really be getting to bed because I'm tired as hell in pushing myself to get my March project over the line. But I didn't end up doing any of my prepping so my fingers are itching to get started but also I should probably sleep.

:v:

Yay for Script Frenzy!

The Hausu Usher
Feb 9, 2010

:spooky:
Screaming is the only useful thing that we can do.

I'm in to write a 100 page period piece film based around William Thomas Turner (the captain of the Lusitania which was torpedoed and sank in 1915).

I have written/directed a few short no-budget horrors and want to try something really kind of outrageous for me to even attempt, I'll write 100 pages or sink trying.

e: It's a film.

The Hausu Usher fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Mar 31, 2021

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

BisonDollah posted:

I'll write 100 pages or sink trying.

:same:

Here we go!



Title of show is a working title, obviously :v:

I've technically hit the goal for Day 1 of the 30 Day Script Challenge but it is annoying that Days 2 through 5 are gonna fall on the Easter long weekend, which means no daycare and therefore less writing time.

So I guess I better keep pushing on!

fallingdownjoe
Mar 16, 2007

Please love me
Today for me is a scoping day - I've not had as much prep time as I would have liked and one of the big things I want to achieve is lots of interacting plotlines to really push the farce and the comedy. So far I've beaten the original germ of an idea into a new shape - I don't think it'll be as much of a heist as I'd initially thought, but I think that things are beginning to come together. There's a long way to go, though.

Also, to anyone currently battling with using the google docs extensions, I can recommend shifting to WriterDuet. It's lowered the level of frustration I was feeling when trying to get started! I've used Final Draft in the past which is also excellent, but I'm writing on a truly dodgy laptop and I'd rather be able to access the script online if it dies before the end of the month.

As Nero Danced
Sep 3, 2009

Alright, let's do this
Last time I wrote a 130 page script I did it in 8 days. I don't intend to beat that record but I have a 4 day weekend coming up so I should get a big chunk of it done.

NObodyNOWHERE
Apr 24, 2007

Now we are all sons of bitches.
Hell Gem
lol I have no idea how you guys write so fast. I definitely won't be able to do anything full length, but I'm going to try to knock out a short script for an anthology show I have in mind, probably around 30 pages. It's about the last man at the heat death of the universe still managing to be problematic. Should be mostly dialogue free, which will be an interesting challenge.

Still happy to read and provide notes.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

I figure that even if I don't reach 100 by the 30th I'll at least have gotten started and built momentum.

I usually write pretty fast but actually getting started is by far the slowest part of the process.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
Welp, my daughter has a cough and a low grade fever (probably not COVID) and nobody got any sleep last night and tonight's looking like it'll go the same way. So I haven't actually done all that much, I just literally have a pile of index cards of things that I think would be good to go in the show. The goal is to get all of the index cards down and in some sort of order that makes a sort of sense by the end of the weekend so I can start cranking out the scenes once Easter is over.

:supaburn:

FreudianSlippers posted:

I figure that even if I don't reach 100 by the 30th I'll at least have gotten started and built momentum.

But yeah, 100% this!

Maigius
Jun 29, 2013


Was starting out the script with a rather boring press conference heavily involving the minutia of transmissions in space. I realized that would work better as an interview, so that's where the details are going.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
I'm halfway through page four and still not done with my opening number, which has at least four distinct musical sections and does not resemble any sort of standard AABA song form or anything conventional.

And because I just need to get things moving, I've decided to go lyrics first mostly, and leave the music until later. Which undoubtedly I will pay for as I frantically try to score like 16 songs during the last week of April or something. Maybe I'll cheat like Jeff Bowen did when he wrote [title of show] where he basically handed in songs with lyrics but no music, but nobody knew because they only had to submit 3 demo tracks instead of the full score.

fallingdownjoe
Mar 16, 2007

Please love me
As a report to keep me honest, I've had a shocking few days where not much has been done, but at least I think I have most of the plotting in a solid place, at least with the setup. I'm a bit of a seat-of-the-pants writer though so I think I'm still in a position where I'll get at least to the end of Act One in the next 10 days and then take stock. Another few days of plotting should then get me into a position to carry on.

FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

FreudianSlippers posted:



-Nightcry (very bad working title)
A dysfunctional couple desperately tried to save their crumbling relationship by going on a week-long camping trip through Iceland. After a series of drunken arguments they're ejected from a campsite and forced to rough it in a location where that woman soon discovers is haunted by the útburður, the vengeful ghost of infants left for dead in the wilderness in ancient times. She hears the anguished cries in the night but He either doesn't or pretends not to. But soon the haunting progresses to the point that no one could ignore it.


Started on a short script as a warm-up for this. Partly because I doubt the feature script will be any longer than 85 pages and partly because I intend to actually make these in the near future, the short first to serve as s proof of concept of sorts like Raimi did with Within the Woods to get funding for The Evil Dead.

Got about ten pages in for something that will be at most 15 pages.

Working fast because it's a loose adaptation of M.R. James' ghost story 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' so I already have the basic story and structure from that and transposing it to a guy alone in a tent.

So I can then write a similar story about two people alone in a tent.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
Nice work everyone!

I just finished my first scene and stumbled across this hidden little feature in WriterDuet:



If you click on "View Writing Schedule", it takes you to this:



Clicking "Submit" will automatically create a Google Calendar entry for all of those writing times, which is pretty handy. Now my calendar can bug me at 9 PM if I haven't already logged in and done some writing for the day.

I also found that you can "Publish" a version for people to comment on, Google Docs style! Highlight and select specific lines to comment on them.

So um, I guess I will do that: https://read.writerduet.com/DVKK9PYXNP5RPQC2/cb8e525a-17e3-4de4-92f2-0199d7c5c234

Obligatory self-loathing follows: it's a first draft, the lyrics suck, I have vague musical ideas but no actual music written down, I've probably overdone the stage directions, etc etc etc. I started in the middle of the job interview; I'm not sure whether I should have included some set up before that just so it's clear that this is a Big Prestigious Accounting Firm, though I figure that would be conveyed through set design and costume.

Critiques welcome. Looking for feedback on the scene, set up of the conflicts and characters.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today
So I said

Leng posted:

I'm gonna write a show about auditors: basically Wolf of Wall Street meets Flash Boys/Enron but in the style of like, Dear Evan Hansen.

But I'm on page 6 and the second number has turned into a rap. Specifically I was looking at Nikki Minaj's verse in Monster for inspiration (because it is an epic bit of writing). So uh, I guess we're not entirely in the pop-rock bucket anymore.

Rewrites on this for musical consistency are gonna be hell.

EDIT: Done with the second scene and number on page 11. 10 more scenes to go. The next one is gonna be a rewrite of a standalone song I've previously written, so hopefully will be faster though I never know if that's actually going to be true until I start writing.

Leng fucked around with this message at 05:31 on Apr 11, 2021

bushisms.txt
May 26, 2004

Scroll, then. There are other posts than these.


For a little extra boost, the script lab has a free competition going on until the 30th.

https://writers.coverfly.com/competitions/view/tslfreecontest?_ga=2.210483477.1417553906.1618620432-1538771702.1618620432

As Nero Danced
Sep 3, 2009

Alright, let's do this
I've had a lot of personal life stuff pop up that's broken my concentration (not all bad, mostly good, but still) so I'm not sure if I'm going to get very far with my script. At the very least I'll have a solid first act done and a good skeleton of where I want to wrap things up.

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









If someone makes a gang tag I'm happy to give it to everyone who succeeds in getting their script done.

Leng
May 13, 2006

One song / Glory
One song before I go / Glory
One song to leave behind


No other road
No other way
No day but today

As Nero Danced posted:

I've had a lot of personal life stuff pop up that's broken my concentration (not all bad, mostly good, but still) so I'm not sure if I'm going to get very far with my script.

You and me both! But it's ok, there's still 9 days left and progress is progress.

sebmojo posted:

If someone makes a gang tag I'm happy to give it to everyone who succeeds in getting their script done.

This is super cool of you! Forget real life incentives...a gang tag would be awesome. I'll try my hand at something later this week when I need a break.

As Nero Danced
Sep 3, 2009

Alright, let's do this
I was thinking, I can post that script I had written a couple years back over 8 days, so we can at least have something complete in the thread. It was over spring break in 2017 and I'm pretty proud of it, even if the climax still needs work (I basically wrote it in a rush of energy and haven't looked back since, even though I've blueprinted everything I wanted to change). I think part of my block this time around is it's a story I'm not very passionate about so I wasn't able to dedicate a lot of mental energy to it.

bushisms.txt
May 26, 2004

Scroll, then. There are other posts than these.


Welp, I thought I was on the finally stretch and had scheduled out my days. Turns out I started planning a bit past what I had written already, so now I've got a ton of catching up today. But then hopefully I can get back to being bit more lazy per day.

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FreudianSlippers
Apr 12, 2010

Shooting and Fucking
are the same thing!

I've been having trouble getting work done so I probably won´t make it unless I really let loose in the next week.

On the bright side I revisited an old short script (actually written as a 20 minute episode of a TV project that didn't work out) I did a few years ago and gave it a quick polish and slight rewrite and sent it to a few folks and one of them is enthusiastic enough about it that he wants to find a way to make it a reality.

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